ORLANDO, Fla. – The owners of Jeff’s Bagel Run, Jeff and Danielle Perera, officially announced Friday that they will be opening a second location of the bagel shop in Orlando’s College Park neighborhood.
The couple will be taking over the space left by Belanger Bagels, 4339 Edgewater Drive, which closed on Feb. 28 due to the owner being diagnosed with cancer, according to a social media post.
Recommended Videos
[ADD YOUR BUSINESS TO THE FLORIDA FOODIE DIRECTORY]
“Eric Belanger and I both started baking bagels in October-ish 2019 as cottage food law operators,” Jeff Perera said. “We got linked through an Orlando Sentinel news article about these burgeoning bagel businesses coming to people’s homes and he and I became friendly over time.”
Jeff Perera said Belanger reached out to him shortly after the closure and asked if he wanted to buy up his business.
“My wife and I — Danielle, my partner in everything — we talked it over and decided that it was something that we couldn’t pass up. So, we made it happen,” he said.
The Pereras opened the first location of Jeff’s Bagel Run in Ocoee in July 2021. He said that the signing of the leases for each location happened exactly one year apart.
“It feels fast,” he said.
Check out the Florida Foodie podcast. You can find every episode in the media player below:
Jeff’s Bagel Run has seen great success at its Ocoee location, routinely selling out of bagels within a few hours of opening. Now, with a second location opening, the couple are in the process of hiring a new team and training them to produce the New York-style bagels the business is known for.
“I always knew that I wouldn’t be able to roll every bagel that our shop produced,” Jeff Perera said. “We’ve got a great team here and we’re going to expand it and we are really probably gonna spread ourselves a little thin, but I’ll take up the mantle of rolling most of the bagels, probably in College Park, and the team here will be the ones that hold down the fort.”
Jeff Perera said the new location is smaller than their Ocoee shop, only about 650 square feet. He said the space doesn’t need many changes before it is ready to open.
“It just needs a little facelift and some rebranding. The bones of it are fantastic,” he said.
[TRENDING: DeSantis discusses potential for repeal of Disney’s Reedy Creek act | Win tickets to Welcome to Rockville in Daytona Beach | Become a News 6 Insider (it’s free!)]
The couple plans to open the new location at the end of May or in early June.
“Eric built a great shop there. It is a really awesome bakery, and I’m excited to start making a mess,” Jeff Perera said.
As for Belanger, he recently had surgery as part of his cancer treatment.
“I saw Eric this week, and he looks great,” he said. “He seemed to be in really great spirits and doing well and Danielle and my family wish him the best because it’s tough to go through this battle regardless of your situation, but he’s tough and he’s got a lot of support around him.”